Petitioned by four organisations, the Conseil d’État today ruled on how Arcom monitors compliance with legal obligations regarding the pluralism of currents of thought and opinion in audiovisual media, following its Reporteurs sans frontières decision of 13 February 2024. It considered that the law requires Arcom to ascertain that there is no clear and lasting imbalance in the expression of currents of thought and opinion. It must, therefore, assess overall diversity of expression without qualifying or classifying individual programme participants in terms of currents of thought and opinion.
Four organisations had asked Arcom (the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication) to serve formal notice on nine television channels and five radio stations to modify their list of featured speakers to give various currents of thought and opinion speaking time proportionate to their weight in French society. After Arcom rejected their requests, the organisations asked the Conseil d'État to overturn the refusals.
Firstly, the Conseil d’État reiterated, as it ruled in its Reporteurs sans frontières decision, that the law of 30 September 1986 on pluralism of currents of thought and opinion - particularly in news programmes - requires Arcom to make an assessment that goes beyond merely counting the airtime allocated to political figures. Arcom must, therefore, ascertain that channels, in exercising their editorial freedom, comply with the legal requirement regarding pluralistic expression of currents of thought and opinion.
The Conseil d’État then clarified that Arcom, when it receives a valid request in this area, must ascertain (over a sufficiently long period, barring exceptional circumstances) that there is no clear and lasting imbalance with regard to the requirement for pluralistic expression of currents of thought and opinion in a channel’s programming, especially in news programs and those contributing to the dissemination of information. To do this, Arcom must provide an overall assessment on diversity of expression, without qualifying or classifying programme participants according to currents of thought and opinion. This review does not challenge the rules applicable to the counting of airtime for political figures.
The Conseil d'État, therefore, concluded that Arcom could not, within the scope of its authority, act on the petitions made to it, which would have led it to rule both on the supposed affiliation of the participants to currents of thought and opinion, and on the airtime that should be allocated to them proportionally to the weight of these currents of thought and opinion in French society.
Finally, the Conseil d'État ruled that the provisions of the Act of 30 September 1986 do not apply to the Arte channel, which is governed by an international treaty signed on 2 October 1990 between France and several German Länder, which expressly excludes the intervention of any regulatory authority in its programming.
On these grounds, the Conseil d'État dismissed the petitions.
Read the decision (in French)
Find out more:
... about what has happened since the Conseil d’État's decision in February 2024
Subsequent to the Conseil d'Etat's decision on 17 July 2024, Arcom adopted a resolution on compliance with the principle of pluralism of thought and opinion by service broadcasters. Developing a line of reasoning similar to that of today's decision, this deliberation stipulated that the authority "shall ascertain that the expression of currents of thought and opinion is not, with regard to the requirement of diversity, affected by a clear and lasting imbalance, in particular in news and informative programmes.In making this assessment, it took into consideration the contributions of all the participants in the programmes broadcast".. In this regard, Arcom has also adjusted the content of the new agreements signed with the DTT channels.
... about the contributions of today's Conseil d'État decision
Today's decision is the first opportunity the Conseil d'État has had to rule on the Reporteurs sans frontières decision of 13 February 2024 regarding Arcom's monitoring of pluralism in relation to radio and television speakers beyond merely counting the airtime allocated to political figures. Firstly, it clarified the criterion that Arcom must apply when exercising its authority to issue a formal notice, which consists of verifying the absence of a clear and lasting imbalance with regard to the pluralism requirement. It also specified the method to be used by Arcom, which is responsible for reviewing all programming. Lastly, the Conseil d'Etat ruled that monitoring pluralism does not in any way require an opinion to be given regarding the orientations attributed to a particular speaker.
… about the pluralism practised by the channels targeted by the petitioners
Although the requests filed by the petitioners with Arcom were directed at 14 named channels, the Conseil d'État made no assessment regarding the programming of these channels. With regard to the rules laid down by law and specified by the Conseil d'État, the petitions were outside the scope of Arcom's control, which could only reject them.